


You're Still Here

by catefrankie



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Blood Brothers, Canon Compliant, Developing Friendships, Domestic, F/M, Missing Scene, Pining, a fic to answer the question:, but not ooc swearing I hope, except for the swearing, how did we get from point A sitting together in the dark at the end of 1.19, miss mystic falls, spoiler alert: my answer is completely G-rated, there is non-canon-typical swearing, to point B cuddling on the couch in 1.20?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-05-23 10:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14932607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catefrankie/pseuds/catefrankie
Summary: Dear Diary, Two days ago I was preparing for the Miss Mystic Falls pageant, and learning how to dance with my newly cheerful, spontaneous boyfriend.  Today I woke up on the Salvatores’ basement floor.Missing scene fic, set between Miss Mystic Falls and Blood Brothers.





	1. Just Your Average Sunday Morning

_Dear Diary,  
Two days ago I was preparing for the Miss Mystic Falls pageant, and learning how to dance with my newly cheerful, spontaneous boyfriend. Today I woke up on the Salvatores’ basement floor. Stefan is locked in the cell behind me, unconscious, and I’m the one who put him there. I want to believe in him, I really do, but he’s so lost right now I think this is the only way. He’ll see that, once he’s himself again. I know he will. _

Across from her, Damon shifts slightly, and Elena pauses writing to glance at him – he’s sleeping sitting up, his head just barely tilted back against the brick, and sleep hasn’t softened him in the slightest – he’s still wearing his suit jacket for goodness sake, and he looks like he’s gritting his teeth. But he doesn’t wake, so Elena resumes writing.

_Stefan is going to be alright, I’m sure of it. He’s strong, and he’s done this before, and now he has Alaric and me and_

“Would it kill you to write in pen?”

Elena looks up; Damon’s eyes are still closed, but he’s assumed an expression of long-suffering. “No,” she says, underlining the word “ _strong_ ” slow enough that the scratch of her pencil is even a little irritating to her, “but this way if you get annoying, I can stake you.”

He opens one eye to glare at her, wounded. “What did I do?”

“It’s still early, Damon, I’m sure you’ll come up with something.” He groans and then abruptly launches himself into a standing position – specifically, standing directly in front of her. He stretches. Elena very assiduously does not look up from her journal, but can’t help asking, “Don’t you have a crick in your neck?”

“Nope.” He peers over her into the cell.

“He’s not awake,” she says.

“Yeah, well,” Damon says, dismissive, “there’s enough vervain in those darts to knock out an elephant, if the elephant was also a vampire.” 

“That tomb vampire, the one who kidnapped Stefan, he woke up almost right away,” Elena says.

“Stefan’s a massive lightweight?”

“Ha ha,” she answers.

“You should really get up,” he says, nudging her with his foot.

“Says the guy who was fast asleep five seconds ago.”

“No, upstairs.”

Elena shakes her head, firm. “I don’t want him to be alone when he wakes up.”

“And that’s _great_ , Elena, but there’s stuff we’re actually going to _need_ that you could _help_ me with.” 

“Can’t it wait?”

Damon rolls his eyes. “It’s not going to change the fact that you literally stabbed him in the back and locked him in a dungeon just because you’re sitting outside the door.” Elena snaps her journal shut and stands, half-wishing she could vamp-speed into his personal space and startle him for once. He just raises his eyebrows at her.

“What do you need help with?” she bites out.

“We’re gonna need more vervain,” he says. “And I prefer not to handle it myself.” 

She winces. “Do we really need to drug him again? It’s so soon.” 

Damon shrugs. “That’s what he did with me, and I still got out, so…”

“So,” Elena agrees heavily, glancing over her shoulder into the cell where Stefan is still lying, half propped up against the wall. _I don’t know what’s happening to me, he said. I don’t know either, Stefan, but I’m doing the best I can…_

“I’ll tell you the moment he wakes up,” Damon says, wheedling. “I have super-hearing, remember?”

“I know.”

He gestures at the stairwell, impatient, and with one look back through the bars on Stefan’s door, Elena allows herself to be herded up two flights of stairs to a guest room which has apparently been repurposed as a greenhouse. Elena turns in a slow circle; there are three grow lamps directed at a dozen or so slightly wilted but still living plants, and bunches of cut flowers hung upside down from the ceiling. "So," she says, conversational, “have you always kept a private stash of the magic herb that can knock you out?” 

“Family legacy,” says Damon, hanging back in the doorway. “They used to be in the basement, but Stefan wanted to have a _functional_ prison cell. Wasn’t my idea, if you recall, even if I have been stuck with gardening duty since.” Elena looks back at him, he bobs his eyebrows at her, then admits, “I should probably water more often.” 

“Probably,” Elena echoes. “Do we need the fresh or the dry herb?”

“Either one seems to work fine. The dry is easier for me to work with, because the oil doesn’t get everywhere as much, but you can do whatever you want. There’s garden shears over on the windowsill. Go wild.”

“How _do_ you work with it?” Elena asks, combing her fingers through the nearest plant to look for a likely-looking bloom.

“Gloves,” Damon says, “and swearing.”

Elena selects a flower, separates it from its neighbors. “Does this one look good?”

“It looks fine.”

“You didn’t even _look_.”

“It’s _magic_ , Elena, not floristry.” But he maneuvers his way into the room anyway, pulling his fists up into his jacket sleeves and carrying his arms in front of his face like he’s just washed his hands and is going in to perform surgery. He stops behind her and leans over her shoulder to look at the flower. “It’s fine,” he repeats, snaking an arm around her to grab the shears. She has to resist an urge to push him headfirst into the plant like it’s a snowbank and they’re children, but he manages to brush his wrist against a flower anyway, and drops the shears. “ _Shit_ ,” he says, snatching his hand back. 

“I could have gotten them,” Elena says, picking the shears out of a flowerpot.

“Yeah, you could have. I hope you’re happy,” he tells her. Then, when she’s cut her chosen flower, “You’ll need a lot more than that, you know.”

She obligingly selects another, snips the stem. “I thought I could use a couple fresh ones with some of the dried ones? In case there is a difference of effect?”

He side-eyes her. “You’re trying to make this make sense.” Before she can answer he’s reached up, vampire-quick, ripped one of the bunches from the ceiling, and dropped it on her. “Shit, shit, god _damnit_ , shit!” 

“What are you –”

Damon interrupts her, flatly, “You wouldn’t have been able to reach it.” Elena points at a chair in the corner of the room, he looks up from examining his burns. “Ohhh,” he says, “ _now_ you’re all full of good ideas and independence.”

“Are you okay?” Elena asks, for lack of anything better to say.

“It’ll heal as soon as I get something to eat.” He adds, fixing her with a suggestive stare, “Or some _one_ to eat, if you’re still riding that recent wave of generosity.”

_His fangs aren’t out, his eyes are…laughing._ Elena responds drily, “I will take a bite out of this bouquet right now, Damon.” 

He grins at her. “But how would you occupy yourself with _both_ of us drugged?”

“I dunno, I’d probably work on my essay that’s due on Thursday,” she says, then adds, softly, “He’s still out?” 

She expects him to roll his eyes at her, maybe say something dismissive like “Yes, Elena, I told you I would tell you”, but he stills, his eyes go unfocused. “His breathing is pretty steady,” he says. “He’s not as far under as he was last night, but he’s still asleep.”

Elena sighs. “It has to work,” she repeats to herself, the litany of the last twelve hours.

“It might,” Damon says, evenly, “but it’s probably going to get worse before it gets better.” She nods, ducks her head to smell her armful of vervain so she doesn’t have to look him in the eye. She thought she’d become inured to the scent after weeks and weeks of wearing the necklace, but it’s sharper fresh. “You’re good?” Damon asks. “Happy with your painstakingly-selected magical death flowers? Then let’s get out of here.” 

He sets her up with a mortar and pestle at the kitchen table, and she sits quietly, crushing flowers and trying not to brood, while he putters around the room, putting water on to boil and pulling out various dishes and sliding them over to her from a safe distance. The Salvatore kitchen, which she’s only now realizing she’s never set foot in before, is clean, organized, and roomy, which would make sense seeing as it used to be kitchen for a boarding house, but still comes as a surprise somehow. She’s only ever seen Stefan and Damon with water glasses (usually of blood) and tumblers (always of bourbon); apparently they also own frying pans, wooden spoons, and a punch bowl. _Who’d have thought. But then, Damon did make an edible meal out of the assorted leftover ingredients he and Jenna found in our fridge that one night not too long ago, so he must be familiar with non-liquid forms of sustenance._

She hears the fridge shut and then, with that now all-too-familiar _whoosh_ , he’s seated at the very far end of the table from her, transferring blood from a blood-bag to a glass. Elena finds herself staring slightly, definitely a little grossed out but also mesmerized. _It’ll never get normal, I’m sure of it. Knowing everything that I know, having been fed on by Anna and Vicki and now Stefan, it will still never, ever be normal._ He notices her attention and lifts his half-full glass to her in a silent, sardonic toast, but neither of them speaks, and after an almost companionable exchange of eye-rolls, Elena returns her attention to the vervain. This is what she can do for Stefan right now, even if it feels small and pointless. This is what will help him, even if it can only help him by keeping him weak. This is where she has to be, even if she would rather be downstairs, or home, or anywhere else. 

She has all the vervain crushed and collected and is starting the complicated distilling process (Damon half explained and then gave up and put a book in front of her), when she sees out of the corner of her eye that Damon’s hyperactive fidgeting over by the liquor cart has ceased. She takes one look at his face and makes for the stairs; he vamp-speeds in front of her, throwing an arm out to stop her. “Damon!” she exclaims, indignant.

He places himself squarely in her way and hunches over slightly so he can look her in the eye. “He’s going to be disoriented. If you want him to stay calm, you need to be calm. Don’t get too close to the bars, he can reach through and grab you.” Elena starts to protest but he raises a single finger in her face and continues doggedly. “His withdrawal shouldn’t have started yet, but I’m pretty sure he’s been over-feeding for at least the last week, and that means he might start experiencing symptoms sooner than normal, and he might still be pretty strong despite the vervain.” Elena nods impatiently and tries to go around him, he steps into her path, says firmly, “Elena, do you _promise me_ you’re not going to do anything stupid?” 

She pushes at him ineffectually. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, yeah, you have no idea, Little Miss ‘I can’t wait in the car, I have to throw a wrench in the rescue plan because I don’t like to be left out’? And that’s not to mention the brilliant stunt you pulled to get Stefan close enough so you could tranquilize him. If there’s any danger, you like to throw yourself directly in front of it, so I’m just trying to make sure you don’t waltz into the cell right now and offer Stefan your neck.”

“I’m not going to offer him my _neck_ , Damon, please! I just want to be down there with him, I just need to talk to him.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” But he inches slightly to the side, gestures towards the stairs. “He’s just waking up now. Calm, Elena.”

She doesn’t thank him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *side-eyes my unfinished multichapter for another fandom* Anyway...
> 
> You can find my episode recaps and meta at thevampirediariesdiary.tumblr.com. Follow me!


	2. Trick, Trap, Test

Stefan is, in fact, just leveraging himself to a sitting position when she clatters to the bottom of the stairs. “Stefan!” she gasps out.

“Elena?”

“I’m here, I’m right here.” She takes a step toward the door, then rocks backward again, every instinct in her screaming to run right up to the door, if not open it. But then, she can’t imagine she’ll gain anything in the long run by inviting Damon’s ire so soon. “I’m here,” she repeats.

“Elena, what’s going on?” Stefan asks, his voice slurred; he’s gripping the edge of the cot with one hand to keep himself upright, the other hand covering his eyes.

“You’re going to be fine, Stefan,” she says, then finds herself at a loss for words. She was worrying so much about the next step and the one after that – about Stefan weak and starving, about having to eventually decide when he was ready and safe to be free – that she hadn’t considered _this_ , hadn’t thought what she would say to him, let alone imagined that she would have to explain to him where he was and what she’d chosen. “How do you feel?” she asks.

“I’m okay,” he says, almost reassuring her. “I think I can walk.”

“That’s good,” Elena says. _But wait, maybe it isn’t?_

“This is the basement, right?” He’s looking around now, but slowly, as if his head is spinning. “I’m still at home.”

“Yes,” she answers. “Everything’s going to be okay, Stefan.”

“I feel…” he stops, grimaces. “I don’t…”

“What do you remember?” Elena interrupts gently.

He groans. “I came back after…after the woods?” He looks up, meets her eyes for the first time. “You were here.”

“That’s right.”

Stefan rolls his eyes up to the ceiling in frustration and then looks a bit sick and drops his head between his knees. “That was reckless, Elena.”

“I’m fine, aren’t I?” Elena says, trying to make her voice light.

“Did I – did I push you into the wall?” She doesn’t answer. He blows out a hard breath, says, “I could have hurt you.”

“This is what I keep saying, but nooo, no one listens to me.” Stefan lifts his head; Damon waves at him from the bottom of the stairwell.

“I guess I have you to thank for this,” Stefan says, resignedly.

Damon shrugs good-naturedly. “Yeah, sure.” 

Stefan snorts. “You enjoying it? Karma, irony, the tables turned?”

“Well, watching you sit still isn’t exactly my idea of fun, but withdrawal ought to kick in full-force in about twelve hours,” Damon says, raises his eyebrows. “I’ll enjoy it then.”

“This wasn’t even his idea,” Elena puts in, impatiently. “Stefan, I was the one who gave you the vervain, don’t you remember?”

“No,” Stefan says, seemingly responding automatically. “No, that can’t be right.”

“I got the vervain from Alaric,” Elena says, speaking slowly and clearly. “And _I_ asked Damon for help. He was standing just outside in case anything went wrong, I was careful, Stefan.”

“No,” Stefan says, as if she would lie to him, “no, he’s the one who told you I was drinking again. You only thought you had to do this because of him.”

_Never mind that he admitted to lying to me. Never mind that he attacked Amber, was feeding on her right in front of us. Never mind that I’m my own person, and especially never mind that maybe Damon wants what’s best for him too._ “Stefan, I love you, and I know you better than anyone. And it’s because I know you, and because I love you, that _I know you need help_.”

“You really think the way to help me is to leave me locked up in here?” he says, but the initial disorientation is giving way to something worse, something hurt. Understanding is beginning to dawn. “How could you do that, Elena, how could you think that of me?”

“Well, see, it’s like this,” Damon says. “She’s actually very smart.”

Softly, Elena says, “Stefan, I promise, this is for the best. You’re going to be okay, we’re going to get through this.”

Stefan looks back and forth between them, and snorts. “God, it’s like the dynamic duo from hell: Damon’s willingness to do absolutely anything to achieve his ends, and your unshakable certainty that you’re the _one_ person who _always_ knows what the right thing to do is.”

Damon looks sideways at her. “Are you insulted by that? Because honestly I think I’m fine with it.”

She ignores him. “Can you tell me this isn’t the right thing?” she asks Stefan, challenging. “Because I don’t see another way out of this.”

“Elena,” Stefan says, and now that awful voice he used on her in the dressing room is back, as if she’s being hysterical, as if her opinion means nothing in the face of everything his vampire nature is telling him he needs. “I know things were – were different. I know _I’ve_ been different, I know you were scared yesterday. But don’t you see?” He smiles at her, she stares back uncomprehendingly. “This is just the adjustment period! I just need a little bit longer to get used to it.”

“And how am I supposed to agree to that?” Elena asks, throwing her hands in the air. “What else is going to happen, who else is going to get hurt in the middle of the adjustment period?”

“No one is going to get hurt,” Stefan says, his voice dripping in condescension. “I can control it.”

“ _You’re not yourself like this_ ,” Elena says. There’s a _whoosh_ and Damon’s hand is on her elbow, pulling her back; she took two steps forward in the narrow passageway, totally unconsciously. She looks at him; he’s glowering down at her intensely. “I wasn’t thinking, I’m sorry,” she manages. He doesn’t answer, just releases her arm, shifts so his shoulder is between her and Stefan. She nudges him with her shoulder, trying to gain back a little personal space, but he only elbows her in return and resumes standing an inch away from her.

Abruptly, Stefan lets out a bark of laughter. Elena looks back over at him, he asks wonderingly, “Don’t you see the irony? You’re standing there with _Damon_ and you’re not afraid. You’re not asking him to stop drinking human blood, how is it different with me?”

“It _is_ different, and you know it,” Elena says, crossing her arms to avoid touching Damon.

“The primary difference being that I can keep my shit together,” Damon puts in.

“What, so you only hurt people when you _want to_?” Stefan snaps. Damon shrugs. “How is that better, Elena?”

She shifts, uncomfortable. _Exactly the question I haven’t had the time to answer for myself._ “At least I know I can count on Damon to – to act like Damon.”

“He _threatened_ to _turn you_ ,” Stefan protests.

“Wow,” says Damon. “Is it just me or does that seem like it was _ages_ ago?” He blows out an impressed breath. “Good times.”

Stefan gestures at him indignantly.

“This isn’t about Damon,” Elena tells him, lifting her chin. “This is about getting you to a place where you’re yourself, and in control, whatever that looks like for _you_. And nothing you tell me is going to convince me that this is it.”

Stefan pushes himself into a standing position and takes a shaky step toward the door. Elena feels Damon tense beside her and places a hand on his arm. 

“Say I am out of control,” Stefan says. “Say I am dangerous. Even if that is true, I would never ever hurt _you_ , Elena, and you _know that_.”

“I know,” she whispers.

“Hello?” Damon says, snapping his fingers in her face. “Have we already forgotten the part where he slammed you into a wall less than twelve hours ago?”

“You can help me, Elena,” Stefan says. “I saw you in the woods and then I remembered who I was.”

“Yeah, and then he threw me into a tree!”

“I know you’d never hurt me, Stefan,” Elena says, “but that’s not enough.”

“He _slammed you_ into _a wall. I’ve_ never done that.”

“Listen to yourself,” Stefan snaps, turning on him. “As if that gives you the higher ground? You kept Caroline as your personal plaything and minion for weeks, and you tried to _kill_ Bonnie. How can this be how you see yourself – all of a sudden, Damon Salvatore, protector of the innocent. Who do you think you _are_ , coming to stand between us?”

Damon raises his eyebrows. “She told you, Stefan. _I’m the person she called_.” 

Stefan lunges forward, grabs the bars. “ _Damon_!” Elena exclaims, spinning to glare at him. He presents her with his bland face of minimal compliance, the face which says “I don’t know why, with the evidence and experience you have of me, you’re expecting me to act like a person”. She grips his sleeve, tugs. “Please.”

He gives a put-upon sigh. “Fine, Elena.” He looks at Stefan. “So, for the sake of argument, you’d never, ever, in a million years hurt Elena? Even like this, even out of control?”

“Never.”

“Okay,” Damon says. He turns his back on Stefan, takes Elena firmly by the shoulders, and backs her up, step by step, into the wall opposite the cell. “Do not move,” he says, very seriously. “I will be right back.”

“Okay,” Elena answers, only a little petulant.

“Not a muscle, not an inch. Do I need to take your necklace and compel you?” Damon asks. She reaches up and places her right hand over his, he flinches and snatches his hands back. “What the hell?”

“I’m covered in vervain, Damon,” she says drily. “If you want to compel me you’re gonna have to set a fire hose on me first.”

He considers her. “I think you’d better come upstairs with me.” 

“I’m not going to move, Damon!”

“Fine, but if you so much as shift your weight in the direction of the door, I will hear you, and I will come down here and tackle you.” 

She just looks pointedly at the stairs. He points a threatening finger in her face and then vamp-speeds away.

“You really shouldn’t be here by yourself with him,” Stefan says, sounding tired. “You should call Alaric.”

“Don’t _you_ start with me,” Elena tells him. She leans against the wall, Stefan backs up and sits heavily on the cot against the wall of his cell; they regard each other warily. _I hate this. I hate talking to him and not feeling like it’s Stefan who answers. I hate not knowing if he’s lying to me on purpose or if he really believes what he’s saying is the truth. I hate feeling like everything he says about what I mean to him could just be a way of getting what he wants…_

There’s a _whoosh_ and Damon appears at the bottom of the stairs; he strides forward and places a glass of blood on the narrow windowsill in between the bars of Stefan’s cell door, and then steps back.

“What are you doing?” Elena asks, pushing off the wall. 

“Back it up, sweetheart,” Damon says, not looking at her. He crosses his arms, bobs his eyebrows at Stefan. “The good stuff, one hundred percent human. Go ahead.”

Stefan huffs a quiet laugh. “Exactly how stupid do you think I am?”

“I don’t know,” Damon answers, “what metric are we working with?”

“This is a trick, it’s a trap,” Stefan says, unimpressed. 

“Not a trick,” Damon answers. “Not a trap.”

“Oh really?” Stefan retorts. “Does that have vervain in it?”

“Yes.” Damon leans toward him, flicks the glass with his finger, making a ‘ _clink_ ’ sound. “But my bet is you drink it anyways.” 

Stefan’s eyes widen. “I don’t get it,” Elena says.

“It’s a test,” Damon says, turning to her. “If he can go…say, forty-five whole minutes without drinking this, knowing full well that it would knock him out, then I’ll reevaluate my judgment on his control and, I dunno, let you two hold hands through the bars, or whatever.” 

“But if it has vervain in it, why would he drink it?” Elena persists.

“I don’t know!” Damon says casually. “I wouldn’t. But then, as previously established, I have a very different relationship with blood.”

Elena looks at Stefan. He swallows hard and then smiles at her. “I’m not going to drink it, Elena,” he says.

“Wanna put money on it?” Damon says snidely, swaggering over to join Elena by the wall.

“I’m pretty sure you already took my wallet, so I’m not sure what the point of that would be,” Stefan answers wryly.

“If he can do this, though, what’s the next step?” Elena murmurs.

Damon shrugs. “Try it again, without the vervain? Have you stand real close and prick your finger with a needle? I don’t know, Elena, I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

But Stefan’s eyes are already starting to flick over to the glass. His breathing is getting heavier. He makes a move as if to stand and then rocks backward.

“If you knock it over that doesn’t count,” Damon calls to him.

Stefan growls.

“Stefan, look at me,” Elena says, soothing. “It’s going to be okay, you can do this. Just keep your eyes on me.”

He laughs, a hard, desperate sound, and can only meet her eyes for a second before he doubles over, fists clenching at his sides.

“Come on, it’s barely been eight hours since you last had a fix,” Damon says, somehow both encouraging and taunting. “You don’t need it, you can survive for days without drinking.”

Stefan looks up, and Elena recoils so fast she hits her head against the wall. His eyes are red, his fangs are out, and all she can see is his face covered in blood and Amber falling unconscious to the ground behind him. He looks at her, lets out a laugh halfway between self-deprecating and sobbing, and stands. The veins by his eyes start to recede, but he walks toward the door anyway. “So much for that,” he says, his eyes clear. And reaches for the glass.

Then, in a flash, Damon’s at the cell door, there’s a loud _thud_ , and her side feels cold where Damon used to be standing. She didn’t even have time to flinch.

“I guess it was a trick,” Damon says through the bars. “Oh well.”

“What did you do?”

He turns to look at her – his eyes are blue-gray, his fangs are nowhere to be seen; he looks perfectly under control and immensely self-satisfied. “I snapped his neck.”

“You _what_?” Elena runs up to the bars, pushes past him to look in. Stefan is stretched out perpendicular from the door, his neck at an angle it’s hard to look at. She turns to Damon in outrage; he takes the glass from the windowsill and takes a sip, raising his eyebrows at her over the rim. She can’t manage to say anything but, “Damon!”

“What?” he says. “The point of this is to _dry him out_. I wasn’t actually going to let him drink, of course there’s not vervain in it. I’ll get some from upstairs and dose him while he’s out, much easier.” She only frowns at him. He tips his head back, groans. “Come on, Elena, just say it.”

_And what is ‘it’, exactly? Why am I upset? Is this about Damon hurting Stefan, or about Damon lying to him – lying to me?_ “You’re hardly building trust.”

Damon snorts. “We’re here to get him under control so he doesn’t give us away to the council, not to heal the broken brother relationship. Let him trust _you_ if he has to, I’m not interested.” He pauses, says less harshly, “Your head okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says, touching the back of her head gingerly. “But on the subject of slamming me into walls, this one’s on you.”

His brow furrows, then, unexpectedly, he bites his wrist.

“What are you _doing_?” Elena says automatically, even though it’s fairly clear. He holds his arm out to her, she shakes her head numbly.

“You’ve gotten banged up a lot the last couple days,” Damon says, oddly bashful, “and you’re probably still recovering from the rescue attempt. You lost a lot of blood feeding Stefan.”

“No,” says Elena, elbowing his hand away with gentle firmness, trying to be mindful of the vervain on her hands, “thanks.”

He raises his eyebrows at her, communicating ‘ _you sure?_ ’, then shrugs and returns his attention to the glass of blood, the bite mark already fading on his forearm. “Suit yourself.”

Elena stands on her tiptoes and peers in at Stefan so she doesn’t have to look at him. “So now what?”

“Well, you could use a shower.”

She snorts, startled. “What, do I smell? Or do you just wanna have the option of compelling me on the table?”

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, gestures vaguely in her direction. “Your pageant hairdo is all…deflated.”

She turns to face him, nonplussed. “What?”

“It’s all curly, and a mess.”

“I’m sorry,” Elena says sarcastically, “am I too hard to look at?”

“Yes,” Damon answers, flatly. She stares at him. “You look like Katherine,” he bites out. “It’s not doing my sanity any favors, so I’m sure it’s not helping him.”

“Oh,” Elena says, wishing for the millionth time that she looked eerily like someone else, _anyone_ else. “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, I hope so," he says, not angry, but purposely distant. "You curled your hair. How dare you.”

She nods awkwardly. “So, shower?”

“You know where everything is,” he says, voice softening a little. “You go do that, and I’ll inject Mr. Overconfidence here with more vervain.”

“What about the new batch in the kitchen?” she asks. “I barely got started.”

“Yeah, well, you sucked at it,” he says. “It’s safer if I do it myself.”

“Not my fault you’re a bad teacher,” Elena grumbles. 

“That’s right,” Damon says drily. “Blame it on me if it makes you feel better.”

“It doesn’t.”

He gets that look in his eyes, like something about her has surprised him – she’s seen it before, but she’s never _quite_ sure what it means – but it’s only for a moment before it’s replaced by a wry smile. He nudges her toward the stairs. “Come on, Elena. The clock’s ticking. Intermission won’t last forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first draft was even more dramatic, if you can believe it.
> 
> You can find me at thevampirediariesdiary on tumblr!


	3. Filling the Time

Elena meanders her way down the stairs, feeling marginally more optimistic now that she’s clean and wearing a fresh outfit she found she’d left in Stefan’s room, leftover from the days when they had yet to open the tomb and everything was still complicated, but comfortably so. Back then she was balancing high school with her family and her boyfriend who had a house they could have sleepovers in, whereas now she’s balancing high school with her family and organizing magic spells and mounting rescue missions and dealing with a vampire blood addict. What with everything that’s been happening, she genuinely can’t remember the last time she spent the night. She follows the vervain smell to the kitchen, and is confronted with a picture which raises her spirits just a bit more. “You look ridiculous,” she tells Damon.

He doesn’t look up – no doubt, he heard her coming – but makes an aggrieved face. He’s bent over the homemade distillery, wearing one of Stefan’s pullover hoodies with dishwashing gloves that cover his arms up to the elbows, and has a scarf tied around his neck for good measure. “Says the girl wearing a towel on her head.” 

Elena cocks her head and the weight of the towel half-tips her over, she leans on the counter to stabilize. “Would you believe Stefan doesn’t have a hair dryer?”

“No,” says Damon. “He probably just doesn’t want you to _think_ he has a hair dryer. Have you looked?” 

“ _No_ ,” Elena retorts, “because I trust him.” Damon raises his eyebrows. “And I’ve seen his bathroom cabinet full of hair gel,” she admits. “The illusion has already been shattered, so there’s no point in his pretending.” 

Damon taps one of the odd glassware pieces with a gloved finger and then steps back and looks at her. “Feel better?”

She shrugs. “Better enough. You gave him more vervain?”

“Yep.”

“How long will he be out this time?”

Damon spreads his arms wide, which only serves to highlight how silly he looks. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Will you let me go sit with him without you?”

Damon looks at her, incredulous. “Elena, I just spent the last half an hour more or less slaving over a hot stove, while wearing three layers of clothing, that is now mostly covered in a toxic substance. Also, I slept on a stone floor last night, _for no reason_. I need you to watch this contraption so _I_ can shower.”

Elena bites her lip. “Right, of course. Sorry.” He rolls his eyes, starts pulling at his gloves. He gets one off and then burns himself touching the second one with his bare hand, but just hisses and throws the glove across the room, then grabs a blood-bag which is sitting close at hand presumably for just this purpose. “What do I have to do?” Elena asks.

He waves at the assembly absently. “Just watch it, make sure it doesn’t…boil over, or whatever.”

She nods. “And what do I do if it does boil over?” 

“Holler?” he suggests.

Elena gives him an unimpressed look. “And you’ll come running in the middle of your shower?”

He strips off the hoodie, bobs his eyebrows at her. “If you’re lucky.” The hoodie joins the gloves on the floor.

Elena puts her hands on her hips. “Yeah, that’s _really_ smart, Damon, those two things will mix great, vervain and _nudity_.”

He lifts a hand to his ear, says in mock-surprised tones as he turns toward the stairs, “Oh, what’s that, Stefan, you’re awake?” She throws her towel at his retreating back; he vamps a few yards out of the way, laughing, and it lands on the ground. “You’re a terrible houseguest!” he calls over his shoulder.

“Half the things on the floor are from you!” she yells after him.

“Well, it’s _my_ floor!” There’s a _whoosh_ , he sticks his head back around the doorframe. “Check your phone, willya? It keeps going off.” And then he’s gone again.

Elena heaves an irritated sigh – _he’s probably trying to keep my mind off things, but_ really – and picks up her towel to throw it over the back of a chair before tracking down her phone in the parlor where she left her purse. 

Three texts from Jenna checking in, a gushing text from Caroline thanking her again for a great Founders Court experience, and a missed call from Mr. Saltzman. Nothing from Bonnie. She sends Caroline a smiley face and a heart, texts Alaric “everything as planned, things under control”, and calls Jenna.

She picks up on the fourth ring. “Elena!” She sounds frazzled, as usual. 

“Hey, Aunt Jenna, how’re things?”

“Things? Things would be _better_ if my advisor hadn’t given me _contradictory advice_ on every other chapter.” There’s keyboard clattering, followed by what sounds like repeated hitting of the backspace button.

“Oh no,” Elena says, managing to muster some genuine sympathy. “When’s the next deadline?”

“Soon, too soon.”

“I’m sorry,” Elena says, wandering back towards the kitchen. “Well, I won’t keep you, I just wanted to call and tell you that I think I’ll be sticking around here today.”

“Yeah, Damon texted me,” Jenna says, absently. “He said he has you and Stefan helping him clean out the old library today and that you weren’t allowed to leave until it was done.”

“Uh, yeah,” Elena says. “He’s being really bossy about it.” 

“I still can’t wrap my mind around him being anyone’s legal guardian. Is he as bad at it as I think he is?”

“Honestly, he’s probably worse,” Elena says, thinking of the angle Stefan’s neck is currently at. “But,” she stops in front of the vervain distillery, says, “there’s some seriously weird stuff in this house. So Stefan and I are having fun with it.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Jenna answers. Then, with forced, suspicious casualness, “What happened with Stefan, by the way?”

“Hmm?” Elena says, equally casual.

“He was supposed to be your escort, yeah? He was there when we showed up, and then I never saw him again, and you danced with brother-of-the-year.”

“Oh, yeah!” Elena says, then winces. _Oh yeah? Way to overdo it._ “Stefan…had to step away, unexpectedly, and Damon was…there. And he knew the dance.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say,” Elena says breezily. “I suspect a dark past as a pageant boyfriend.”

There’s a pause. “Elena, you know he’s, like… _my_ age,” Jenna says. “I think he’s almost five years older than you.”

“You know, I think it actually might be more than that?” Elena says, dry. “But I don’t think age is much of a factor in escorting, all he did was walk next to me and be male.”

“I guess,” Jenna says. Then, a little guiltily, “Is Stefan okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine,” Elena lies. “He, uh – ate something that didn’t agree with him.” She hears the faint sound of a “ _HA_!” shouted on the upper floor and smiles despite herself. 

“That sucks,” Jenna says. “Should he really be helping clean if he was just sick?”

“I’m keeping an eye on him,” Elena answers.

“You’re a regular Florence Nightingale. I bet Damon only wants you to hang around because he doesn’t wanna get stuck dealing with pukey Stefan by himself.”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Well,” Jenna says, “come home when you can. I’m stuck here with Jeremy, who doesn’t talk to me, and John, who _does_.”

“Yeah, I’ll let you know!” Elena says, vaguely.

“Enjoy the library.”

“Enjoy your thesis.” Elena hits the end call button and says into thin air, “Cleaning the library, really?”

“ _Turning the water on, can’t hear you_!”

“You shouldn’t be listening anyway!” She pulls up a chair and parks it next to the vervain, and sits back to watch the bubbles. _Turns out, vampire detox involves a lot of waiting._

Elena watches the distillery until she gets bored, and then washes all the dishes Damon left out and walks around the kitchen opening random cabinets until she can guess where to put everything away. She trips over the hoodie in the process, and so assembles a load of vervain-contaminated laundry to wash. She texts Alaric a more detailed update, since he responded to her first one with “Elena, if you communicated this poorly on a school assignment, I would fail you.” She’s back at the table when Damon finally resurfaces, and can’t help asking snidely, “Oh, so you’re done primping now?”

He looks down at his black tshirt and jeans, then back up at her. “If this counts as primping, Elena, then Stefan really needs to up his game. Has he been wearing sweatpants in front of you? Because I told him that was an after-the-one-year-anniversary thing.”

She groans and drops her head onto the table. 

“Seriously, what is your problem?” he says. 

“My _problem_ is that Stefan is in the cellar with a broken neck and a bloodstream full of vervain, and I am here, with nothing to do but watch your poison moonshine and worry, and _you_ decided that this was the perfect time to double condition your hair!” 

“You wanted to be sitting downstairs,” he says reasonably, “and there’s nothing to do there either.”

“I _know_ , Damon, that’s why I’m stressed!” She sounds slightly pitiful, even to herself, but Damon doesn’t seem bothered.

“Okay,” he says, pulling a chair over and straddling it. “Let’s talk game plan. How long are you planning to devote to this?”

“As long as it takes,” she answers immediately.

He rolls his eyes. “It’s not that simple, Elena. If he goes longer than, eh,” he screws up his face, finishes tentatively, “ten days without drinking? He’ll start to desiccate. Now, we can let that happen and wake him up later to teach him a lesson, but you won’t be _convincing_ him of anything while he’s a crusty corpse, so if your plan is to talk him into being good-Stefan again, we’re on a tight schedule.” 

Elena shakes her head firmly. “I don’t want to let him desiccate.”

“Okay,” Damon agrees. “That’ll be plan B.”

“What about withdrawal?” she asks. “You told him that’d be soon? What’s that look like?”

He shrugs. “Shakes, paranoia. Maybe hallucinations. There might only be a couple windows where he’s conscious and not in- _sane_.”

“When will those be?” He just shrugs again in response. “Great,” she says. “So sometime between now and,” she pauses, counts in her head, “next Wednesday, he has to be conscious and sane enough for us to know it’s time to make the switch from giving him vervain to giving him animal blood.”

“Hopefully you’re not at school when that moment comes,” Damon says. “Unless you’re skipping?”

She grimaces. “I could skip one day, tops, without Jenna noticing.”

“So we hold that day in reserve for an emergency,” he says, gives a put-upon sigh, “and I put in the minimum amount of effort with him while you’re at school.”

“You’re a saint,” Elena answers drily.

“I was thinking we’d play it good-cop bad-cop? You’d be the bad cop,” he clarifies, smirking, “obviously. Play to our strengths.”

“Nobody’s bad-copping anything,” Elena says, stern. “You don’t have to threaten him – and, I don’t have to _talk him into_ being good.”

He snorts. “Where have you been all day?” 

“Stefan doesn’t _want_ to hurt people,” she insists. “And he’s still there, under all – this. We just have to wait for the blood to leave his system, and then keep an eye on him afterwards to make sure he doesn’t backslide.”

Damon raises his eyebrows. “You’re right, it sounds like you’ve got it all figured out.”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“Wouldn’t _dream_ of it, Elena,” he says, projecting ironic innocence as only he can.

She huffs an irritated sigh. “And what do we do now?” 

“I dunno,” he says, letting go of the back of his chair to stretch. “We can go sit downstairs, if you want to so badly.”

“Then what about this?” she says, gesturing at the vervain.

He waves dismissively. “Leave it, it’ll be fine.”

“Then why –” Elena breaks off, fixes him with a half-hearted glare. He looks back, unrepentant. She stands, crosses her arms. “Damon.” 

“Yes?” 

But he’s looking at her with a stupid smirk on his face, waiting for her to complain so he can laugh at her, so she just sighs and says, “Are you coming or not?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be right there.”

Perplexed and annoyed but not about to argue, she heads for the basement steps. _And isn’t that just like him. Lying so I won’t go downstairs without him, then sending me off by myself. Saying he wished he could believe me, then giving me my necklace back without compelling me. Saying he hasn’t killed me just because it wouldn’t further his greater agenda, and then pulling me out of the car accident… Once, just once, would it kill him to be straightforward? Couldn’t he just say what he means?_

She edges up to the door and glances in. Stefan is still very much unconscious – but, then again? “Is he unconscious or dead?” Elena calls up the stairs. 

“What?” comes Damon’s voice.

“You broke his neck, so is he unconscious or dead?”

“He’s always dead!” 

She sighs, mutters, “Right.” She sits, her back against the door, and pulls her knees up to her chest. “Vampire boyfriend. Always dead, sometimes conscious.” 

After a couple minutes Damon appears at the bottom of the staircase and slides down the wall to sit across from her. “So E-le-na,” he says, enunciating each syllable of her name separately, “what’s your game?” 

“What’s my _game_?” she repeats, feeling like maybe she ought to be insulted but in the dark as to why. 

“Yeah,” he says, squirming in order to pull something out of his back pocket, “your game.” He holds up a deck of cards, wiggles it at her. 

“Oh,” she says. “I – I don’t know.” She glances over her shoulder automatically, even though there’s a very solid door between her and Stefan. “Should we really be playing cards right now?”

“Well, I _would_ have suggested I-spy, but there’s not much to see.” He reaches over and picks up her journal from where she left it on the floor that morning, ignoring the grabby-hands she makes for it, and sets it on his legs to shuffle the cards on. “Come on, what is it the Gilberts all gather around the kitchen table to play on family night?” He shuffles once, finishes with a perfect bridge, of course, and looks up to raise his eyebrows at her.

“Um,” Elena says, the memory hitting her vividly: Mom keeping track of who owed what to the bank, Dad always trying to provoke everyone into bidding wars for the kitty hand, Jeremy laughing at her every time she got a hand with nothing she could play. “I guess we played a lot of Michigan rummy.”

“Michigan rummy?” Damon says, almost offended. “What do you think this is? I don’t have any chips!” 

“You just asked me what my game was,” Elena protests.

“Yeah, well, you named something we can’t play!” he says, as if she did it on purpose. “Even if I find something to gamble with, there’s only two of us.”

“Then maybe you should have asked a more specific question.”

“It was _implied_ ,” he complains. “D’you know how to play just straight rummy?”

“ _Yes_ ,” she says, making a face at him.

“Fine, then, we’ll do that.” He shuffles a few more times and starts dealing. “But don’t think I’m going easy on you just because your boyfriend the undead blood addict is unconscious in the next room.”

“Fine,” Elena retorts, rearranging her cards into a neat pile. “But I’m not going easy on _you_ just because –” she trails off. _Just because your girlfriend is a manipulative liar who let you chase after a dead end for a hundred-forty-five years? Yeah, that’ll go over well._

Damon’s grin widens. “Because what, Elena?”

“Just because –” _Just because you have no purpose in life? Just because you have no friends besides Stefan, and Stefan mostly can’t stand you? Just because all the people you like in this town have already betrayed you at least once, if they haven’t straight-up tried to kill you?_ “– you’ve had a hard month,” she says, lamely. 

He snorts. “You couldn’t _not_ go easy on me if you tried. Come on, Elena, aren’t you supposed to be some kind of badass now, stabbing your true love and everything?”

“Well I certainly won’t be going easy on you because you’re so kind and polite.”

“Toughen up and try again.”

“And not because you get violent when you don’t get your own way.”

“That just means you have poor self-preservation instincts, which we all already knew.” He deals out her last card, smirks. “So. What do you feel like betting?”

After she refuses to make things interesting, Damon soundly kicks her ass for almost a dozen hands of rummy. Part of that might be skill, but he does beat her to slap the deck nine times out of ten, which almost certainly has more to do with supernatural reflexes than it does card-playing finesse. “How is this fair?” she complains after the third lost sandwich in a row, the last of which Damon won with blatant use of vamp-speed. “I mean, there’s going easy on me and then there’s a completely uneven playing field.”

“Hey, I’m the one getting the back of my hand smacked every single time,” he says, shaking his wrist out.

“You’re fine,” Elena tells him, unsympathetic. “I think maybe a game without any slapping might be called for.” 

“Oh yeah?” he says, disparaging. “You wanna play _go fish_ , Elena?”

“ _Yes_ , Damon, I do!” She scoops up the deck, ignoring his sputtering, and starts reshuffling. “I will demolish you at this game.”

“Yeah?” he says, dry. “You gonna use your powers of empathy to peer into my soul to see if I have any twos?” 

“Yes! And it’ll be easy, since you have the worst poker face in the world.”

“Yeah? Look who’s talking, you’re a terrible liar.”

“Okay, I may be bad in practice,” Elena says loftily, “but at least I know the theory – unlike _someone_ I could name, who came up with an alibi to tell Jenna, and then _didn’t tell me what it was._ ”

“Hey,” he says, pointing at her, “I’m _great_ at sneaking around authority figures. Stefan’s the problem.”

“You only think you’re great at sneaking around because you compel everyone who comes within ten feet of you.”

“That counts!” He glances through his hand, adds, “Got any sixes?”

There’s a horrific gasp behind her; Elena jumps.

“Hey, Stefan!” Damon sing-songs.

Stefan’s voice is weak but indignant. “Did you break my _neck_?” 

“Don’t worry,” Damon answers, “Elena already chewed me out.”

There’s an ugly cough followed by an awful cracking sound. “Yeah, that’s a relief,” Stefan says flatly. “Elena?”

“I’m right here,” she says, instinctively pressing into the door, getting as close as she can. It’s not better than being on the other side of the hall, but it’s not worse, either. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Damon pipes up, “she’s got her hand on the door, Stef. Come put your hand on the other side, it’ll be a nice moment we can look back on when this is all over.” 

“Thanks a lot for the tip,” Stefan says, darkly, “but I’m too full of vervain to move.” 

“I got the dose right!” Damon says, holding up his hand for a high-five. Elena stares at him. “You’re no fun,” Damon tells her. “Now do you have any sixes or not?”

“Are you playing _cards_?” Stefan says in disbelief.

“Yup!” says Damon, cheerful. “Go fish, because Elena sucks at rummy.”

Elena winces. “Stefan, you were unconscious –”

“You wanna play?” Damon interrupts. “Come on, army crawl on over here, we can deal you cards under the door. And don’t think you can cheat just because I can’t see you.”

“Fuck you,” Stefan murmurs feebly.

Damon gasps. “You said a bad word in front of Elena.”

“Can we _not_ rehash the whole resentful, competitive back-and-forth thing we went through last time?” Elena puts in, plaintive. “It didn’t get us anywhere, and it’s not going to help now, either.”

“Are you sure?” Damon says. “We gotta fill the time somehow, and unless Stefan wants to sing kumbaya with you from the other side of the door, competitive back-and-forth is really our best and only option.”

“Please, Damon,” Elena says, feeling her anxiety levels escalating right back to where they’d been before Stefan got his neck broken. “Can you – can you please just let us talk?”

Behind her, Stefan says morosely, “What’s that going to do? You made it pretty clear nothing’s going to change your mind.”

“God, you’re so dramatic,” Damon tells him. “She doesn’t want to leave you in there forever.” 

“And how long before you change her mind on that?”

“I dunno. It probably depends on if I start letting her win at cards.”

“Damon,” Elena says, tiredly. 

He looks at her, sighs, and settles back against the wall; he crosses his arms and shuts his eyes. “Fine. Just pretend I’m not here.”

“I always do,” Stefan says sardonically, “but you usually shatter those happy illusions with your manipulation and murder.” 

“Stefan,” Elena chides gently, “I’m here, and I want to talk to you. I want to be honest with you, like we said we would be. Isn’t that something?”

“Don’t you know enough already?” he demands. “Can’t you just be satisfied? You caught me! I lied, I hurt people. Why keep digging at it, Elena? You’re not going to find anything _good_. You never do!”

“That’s not true,” Elena says.

“You think it’s good you found out I was a vampire?” Stefan says, derisive. “Good that you found out I was feeding? Good that you found out about Katherine?”

“I found out how we really met.” 

There’s no answer. Unable to gage Stefan’s reaction, she looks over at Damon instead, but his eyes are still shut, his face blank. _Not that that would have really helped, since they never react the same way to anything, anyway. And does Damon even know about the night on the bridge?_ “Stefan,” she says, feeling stubborn, “I am glad I know who you really are, even if you’re not. I’d rather be here with the vampire Stefan, going through this with you, than wondering why my normal human boyfriend Stefan only shows up to school half the time.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t you actually rather have a normal human boyfriend who could show up to school all the time?” Stefan asks dully.

“No,” Elena says. “I just want you.”

Silence. And then: “What do you want to know.”

Elena bites her lip. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Any number of reasons,” Stefan says, sounding impatient. “I knew you wouldn’t like it. I knew you’d feel guilty. I knew you’d try to fix it.” He snorts, adds, “I didn’t think you’d try to fix it like _this_ , but then I also didn’t think Damon would rat me out, since it was his idea.”

She ignores the latter half of the comment, asks, “Why don’t you want me to fix it?”

“You shouldn’t _have to_ , Elena.”

He’s clearly starting to shut down, so Elena suggests, “Do you have anything you want to ask?”

He’s quiet again for a moment, and she wishes she could see him – could touch him, could kiss him, could _show_ him that everything is going to be okay. Then, reluctantly, he says, “What happened? Yesterday, after I left.”

Elena glances inadvertently over at Damon, whose eyes have snapped open. He meets her gaze, and forcefully she’s reminded of that one moment in the courtyard right before they started the waltz, when his eyes on hers suddenly felt like a challenge. The near-touch part of the dance he’d been calm, reassuring even, and then all at once it’d been as if he was saying, are you going to trust me or not? I dare you. Are we in this together or not? I dare you. Trust me, let me in, let me take care of this, let me _just a little bit closer, I dare you._

She drops her eyes, wonders desperately what she can possibly say. _After you left, Stefan, I walked down the staircase and no one was there waiting for me where you were supposed to be. After you left, I took your brother’s hand. I danced with him, and I did choose to trust him, and I wouldn’t have gotten through the day without him, and I don’t know that I’ve ever been so grateful for anything in my entire life – because I love you so much, but I cannot save you from this on my own. I needed help, needed_ him, _but I don’t know how I can tell you that without hurting you…_

She looks up at Damon again, but if he’s daring her to do or say something, she doesn’t know what. There are no answers to be found there.

“Elena?” Stefan says. “Elena, come on, I can handle it.” 

“Stefan,” she says, then trails off, still completely at a loss. “After you left, I – I wanted nothing more than to go find you, I swear, but with everything –”

“Just _tell me_ , Elena!” Stefan says sharply. “Is the girl alive or not?”

Elena opens her mouth and then closes it again, blinks a few times. _Of course_. “Amber’s gonna be fine,” she says, keeping her voice even and cursing her own self-centeredness. “Damon compelled her and then we called Sheriff Forbes and she got an ambulance.” She looks over at Damon, but he has his head tilted up towards the ceiling again, to all appearances napping. “She’s fine,” she says more firmly.

Stefan laughs shakily. “Fine.”

“I promise.” 

“And Damon compelled her!” he repeats. “So it’s like nothing ever happened.”

“She had to go to the hospital for a transfusion, but she doesn’t remember any of it.”

“Well, thank God I have you two to clean up after me.”

There’s something strange in his voice. “Stefan,” she says, cautious, “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Make up your _mind_ , Elena,” he snaps. “Do you want to protect people like _Amber_ or do you want to cover up for people like me? You can’t have it both ways – are you for us or for them?”

 _That’s what Bonnie said – I told you I wasn’t gonna make you choose – but I don’t believe those are the only choices, I won’t believe it._ “It’s not like that and you know it,” Elena argues. “I love _you_ , and _you_ want to protect people like Amber.”

“No. No, I’m a vampire, Elena,” he says, voice bleak. “This is who I am.”

“I _know_ you’re a vampire,” she says, exasperated. “But it’s not humans against vampires, it’s not, the council and my uncle aren’t right about that, they _can’t_ be. It’s _people_ , Stefan, on both sides. Just people.”

“People?” he echoes mockingly. “Are you telling me you don’t care how many innocent _people_ the Salvatore brothers murder?”

“No, of course not!” she exclaims, frustrated. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

“You shouldn’t have _drugged_ me!” he shouts. “You _should have killed me_.”

“I didn’t _want_ to drug you, I –” Elena stops mid-protest and stares in shock at the door. “I should have _what_?” 

He’s breathing hard, the effort of raising his voice already draining him. When he speaks it’s with broken, impotent fury. “Either let me be a vampire or put a stake in me, but don’t trap me down here and starve me and tell yourself you’re being brave, because you’re deluded, Elena, I am _never_ going to be what you want me to be. The blood doesn’t change that.”

“Yeah…” Damon speaks up, drawing out the word. “It sounds to me like you’re asking for a fix.” Elena looks back at him; he points to himself and mouths ‘ _bad cop_ ’. She shakes her head at him, mouths ‘ _no_ ’, but can’t think of anything to say.

“You’re such a fucking hypocrite,” Stefan mutters. “Both of you. Damon, you tried to turn me into you. And Elena, when you didn’t like the result, you somehow rationalized rejecting me for the original model.”

“Can’t be repeated, can’t be improved upon,” Damon drawls.

“I don’t _care_ if you think I’m brave,” Elena cuts him off, finally finding her words. “I don’t care if you think I’m deluded, I don’t even care if you think I traded you in for your ass of a brother. I did this for you, and eventually you’re going to see that.” Awkwardly, she rolls to the right, avoiding the window for Damon’s sake, and gets to her feet on the bottom stair. “This isn’t helping,” she says, deliberately, “and I’m calling a timeout.” 

Stefan is quiet as she ascends the steps, but she does hear Damon saying, “Pull yourself together. I _will_ put a bunch of vervain in a spritzer bottle and spray you every time you do something mean.” 

“Damon?” she calls behind her.

“Coming.” He emerges to see her waiting for him at the top of the stairs and says instantly, “That’s just the withdrawal talking.”

“I know.”

“He doesn’t actually mean any of that,” he persists. “He’s desperate right now and he’ll say anything if he thinks maybe it’ll convince you to let him off the wagon – or even if he doesn’t think it’ll convince you.”

Elena sighs. “So he’ll just say anything, for any reason.”

“Or no reason. Anything to distract himself from the hunger.”

“I know,” Elena says again.

“You know?” 

“He told me last week when he was trying to detox that there’s a pounding in his head all the time,” she says. “He’s not thinking clearly, he’s just trying to shut out the pain, or find someone to blame for it.” Damon’s looking at her with his brow furrowed now, so she repeats, “I know it’s not him, Damon, that’s why we’re doing this.”

“Right,” he says, sounding skeptical. “You just seemed like it was getting to you.”

“I’m fine,” she assures him.

“Yeah?” says Damon suspiciously. “Then what’s with the dramatic exit?”

She rolls her eyes at him. “I said it wasn’t helping, and I meant it. And it wasn’t _that_ dramatic.”

“Elena,” he says, clasping his hands together in entreaty. “ _Think_ about who you’re talking to. I _know_ dramatic, and trust me, that was it.” 

“Well,” she says, “I also wanted to talk to you.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Without Stefan listening?”

“I guess, yeah.”

“Because we’ll have to turn the dishwasher on or something.”

“No, Damon, I –” 

“Do we own a blender? That’d work,” he muses.

“No, it’s not like that,” Elena tells him, but it’s too late – there’s a _whoosh_ and he’s gone, and then she hears the dishwasher start running in the kitchen. She heaves a sigh and trudges down the hall to catch up to him. He’s pushing buttons on the dishwasher display, presumably to try to make it louder, but he looks up when she enters. 

“So is this about what Stefan said?” he says, his poker face for once completely intact and utterly unreadable.

“No.”

“I did try to get him drinking blood, that’s true, but there’s really no reason he should react like this, and I thought maybe it’d be different now that he’s got the rest of his life on track. And I’m not trying to turn him into me, it would just be nice if he weren’t perpetually at a fraction of his strength.”

“It’s not about that.”

“Well,” he says, watching her steadily, “is it about yesterday?” 

“Damon, please,” she says, “I just want to ask you something.”

He crosses his arms, looks at her impatiently. She takes a breath.

“Do you have any food here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This could have been split up into two parts, but I don't want to accidentally set up a pattern of every other chapter having Stefan in it. I feel like that would give the story a weird rhythm.
> 
> Follow me at thevampirediariesdiary on tumblr! I'm just about to start rewatching season 2!


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